PHYSICS AND NATURAL HISTORY OF GENEVA. 199 



The same savaut called the attention of the Society to an alleged reptile with 

 feathers, found iu the Jurassic of Soleuhofer, and described by M. Wagner 

 as possessing at ouce the tail of a reptile and the feathers and feet of a bird. 

 This fossil has been acquired for the British Museum by M. Oweu, who will 

 soon publish a detailed description of it. • 



The Society has continued to keep itself informed of the facts relative to the 

 "fossil mem." Its interest has been particularly excited by the discovery of 

 the human jaw-bone of Moulin-Quignon, near Abbeville. M. Pictet, who took 

 occasion very recently to study, at Paris, this bone, and the hatchets which ac- 

 companied it, has set forth to the Society the reasons which seemed to him to 

 render the authenticity of those objects incontestable, notwithstanding the doubts 

 at first expressed on this subject by eminent paleontologists. More recently we 

 have learned with much interest that a sort of scientific congress had been con- 

 voked at Paris, and the authenticity admitted with unanimity. It remains to 

 solve the question of antiquity — that is to say, to decide what place the deposit 

 of Moulin-Quignoii should occupy in the series of quaternary and modern 

 formations. 



-^M. Ilenevier has communicated to us a photographic view of the Diablerets, 

 geologically colored, and has, at the same time, given to the Society an account 

 of some recent geological excursions in the vaudese Alps. He has been enabled 

 to complete the series of Jurassic formations iu this district by the discovery, in 

 the Diablerets, of a stratum of hajocian, (inferior oolite,) and of a stratum of 

 bathonian, (greater oolite,) the first being characterized by a gigantic fucoid. 

 Finally, M. Renevier announces grains of "chara" in the uummulitic of the 

 Diablerets. 



We arrive now at organic natural history, and it remains to speak of botany 

 and zoology. 



Botany. — Professor De Candolle has presented to the Society several in- 

 teresting communications relative to vegetable physiology and to botany proper ; 

 particularly a paper on a new charac'ter observed in the fruit of oaks, and on 

 the best division to adopt for the genus "Quercus;" a memoir entitled Studies 

 on species, occasioned hy a revision of the foividy of Cupid fercB, in which the 

 author discusses the system of Darwin, and the theory, applied to the vegetable 

 kingdom, of a succession of forms proceeding from the deviations of an anterior 

 form. Both these memoirs having been published in the archives of the physical 

 and natural sciences of the Bibliotheque Universelle we shall here content 

 ourselves with indicating them to savants who are interested in questions of 

 this kind. 



Besides the original memoirs just cited, M. de Candolle brought to the notice 

 of the Society some iiiteresting results of observations made by M. Schubler 

 " on plants cultivated in Norway." The author has shown us in what degree 

 the deficiency of heat, in northern regions, appears to be compensated by the 

 prolonged action of the light due to the length of the days ; to such an extent 

 that, in proportion as we advance towards the north, the coloration and sapidity 

 of plants seem to increase rather than diminish in intensity. 



M. de Candolle has also drawn attention to two memoirs of Dr. Hooker. The 

 first relates to a plant discovered on the African continent, opposite Fernando-Po, 

 to which he has given the name of Welwitschia. This plant, whose trunk is a 

 cone of little height, surmounted by a torous (hosseU) table attaining a diameter 

 of six feet, presents the singular character of having but two leaves, which are 

 indeciduous cotyledons. It is the only vegetable known Avhose cotyledons are 

 not caducous. The second memoir of M. Hooker relates to the celebrated 

 group of cedars of Lebanon, which is found to be established on the moraine 

 of an ancient glacier, and which this botanist visited in ISGO. M. Hooker is 

 inclined to think that, in the present circumstances of climate, this tree could, 

 with difficulty, establish itself on the mountain where it is found, and pronounces 



